There was a great discussion going on over at Janko’s site, jankoatwarpspeed.com about what creativity is. We thought it sparked such a great discussion that we wanted to get more input on the topic from our community, so we asked Janko if he’d be interested in posting it over here as well. As you know “creativity” is near and dear to us so my hope is that you will share your thoughts with us! -Adelle

I have recently spoken to a friend of mine about the working processes and at one point he said to me:

You think the only creative people in your company are designers? Don’t you think that developers can also be creative?

The friend: ”Well, yes for the first question and no for the second one”

Uh, you’re so wrong, man

Creativity NOT equals art

According to Wikipedia, “Creativity is a mental and social process involving the generation of new ideas orconcepts, or new associations of the creative mind between existing ideas or concepts. Creativity is fueled by the process of either conscious or unconscious insight. An alternative conception of creativeness is that it is simply the act of making something new.”

So, creativity is not reserved for web designers (and artists, or art, in general). Anyone can be creative. It can be seen outside the design or art. Take cooking for example. Can cook be creative? Could food be prepared or arranged on a plate in a creative way? Yes, I think!

Anyone can be creative

I would rather say that creativity is a state of mind, or simply – a mood. That means that anyone can feel creative sometimes and do something creative. Some of us could be more often in such a mood and some ocould be just a few times. Noone is creative all the time.

So, back to my conversation with a friend – anyone can be creative: designers, managers, cooks, developers, you name it. Can code be written in a creative way? Just because there are rules, patterns and syntaxes that doesn’t means that problem can’t be resolved in a creative way. So yes, developers also can be creative!!!

What about you?

Although I told you my opinion, I’m more than interested in yours. How would you describe creativity? Do you think anyone can be creative and have you ever felt creative?

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Art, actually is a general term – it may refer to graphic as well as to music… The code is art… Art is something… Something you love to do and you found it beautiful. Art is not about the techniques or concepts, yes these are involved in the process, but it is the way you feel it – the ART :)

Creativity is something you see or feel around you, it is like the mist – sooo blurry and most of the time hard to touch, but it might be everywhere around you. It is even in the emotion seen in your almost 3 months old daughter tasting an apple for the first time in her life (which is actually really inspiring).

I think that creativity is the ability to make something that is not there or to recreate something so that it is different but maybe still the same and that still translates to those who experience it.

I think that creative people are natural at mixing medias but then maybe I’m just very fortunate.

Developers can be creative, of course, but it’s not the focus of their job role. With design, creativity is expected, it’s the whole point… maybe that explains your friends’ attitude. I would expect a developer to offer creative solutions to a problem if it was dev related.

First of all I’d like to clearify that I’m both a designer and developer. I think that the creative thing lies on design. Why? being a developer is very close to maths in the sense that it is an exact science: 1+2=3 and that’s it. Being a developer you build things like using Rasti bricks and when it’s done, it’s done. As a designer you don’t have these bricks. You can think of texture, typography, value and visual weights as the bricks but even they have to be created for the page to be born.

Its an interesting one because most people will believe that anyone who creates something tangible like art, design is infact creative. But I think it is also a style of thinking. I am huge fan of Richard Florida who wrote the rise of the creative class. He’s view is that creativity is across all areas now. Lawyers accountants (everyone wants one of those) etc.

I believe its someone who can take a current situation reframe it and come up with a different solution that changes it completely. This can be anywhere

You can tell when your in a room with people like this or people who follow the chain. I leave it to people who thing literally or laterally

I think well at least for me creativity grows out of inspiration and necessity [according to the clients needs].

I am not a designer but a frontend developer and most of the time we are involved in the creative process and seeing how designers could jump from A to C skipping B; results from experience to create something creative, so its not like Epiphany but combination of inspiration + necessity + experience.

Everyone can be creative, and they can often create “outside” their specialty. Designers can suggest language approaches, copywriters can formulate art concepts. There’s no reason to limit creative thinking within a box, like art or copy — particularly in the digital age.

For me, creativity is coming up with effective ways to solve problems. And more specifically, the type of problems that can have more than one correct solution. These problems are often visual in nature, but they can just as easily be aural or mechanical or operational anything else.

Mechanically, it could mean fitting all the necessary components of an object into a given space. (Like all the innards of a cell phone or laptop.)

Operational creativity might solve a problem of making widgets efficiently (and keeping all the workers happy while doing so!). Henry Ford’s adaptation of the assembly line was a creative act, IMO.

Everyone is creative in my opinion. That’s why when I’m stuck I don’t hesitate to ask whoever is around at the time for their thoughts. No matter what they say, it always bring a new perspective and gets the ball rolling again as long as your open to their ideas. The talent is in the execution if you ask me. Ideas are great, but they are just the first step. Where to go from there and bringing it all together is the real trick. I believe truly talented people can make an idea work (given the space to do so) in the end regardless of the starting point.

And as for Elliot’s comment above, I greatly disagree. I also am a designer and developer, developers can most definitely be creative. Anyone who developers anything of any complexity will tell you it’s not just simple 1 + 2 = 3, there are may way to to do the same thing. And just because it works, doesn’t mean it was the best way. There is a great art to keeping your code clean, simple, and flexible.

EVEN CHEATERS AND CRIMINALS CAN BE CREATIVE.
CREATIVITY IS ONE OF THE HUMAN BEING CHARACTERISTICS AND MAY BE THE MOST IMPORTANT.
ANIMALS ARE FINISHED CREATURES THAT MEANS ANIMALS WILL NEVER FIND A NEW WAY OF LIFE THEY CAN T BE GOOD OR BAD THEY JUST EXIST AS THEY ARE THEY ARE FINISHED OR COMPLETED CREATURES. HUMAN BEING IS AN UNCOMPLETED CREATURE, WE ARE LOOKING FOR AN IDEAL AND WE ALL BELIEVE IN A SUPER MAN OR A GOD. HUMAN BEING IS A GOD WHO IGNORES HIM SELF!

“There are rules, patterns and syntaxes” —I think restrictions (of any kind) pave the way for true creativity. Developers are certainly creative when they have to figure out a way of doing something that seems impossible. I’m sure every developer has gone through that! It’s exciting! I’m a designer, but I’ve done some programming before.

Art is definitely not the only kind of creativity, but it is one form of visual creativity. There is creativity in the business world, too. I’m a fan of Edward de Bono (Lateral Thinking, How to Have Creative Ideas) and his philosophy is that creativity is simply the act of making connections between two things where none are readily apparent. It’s new ideas, new ways of thinking.

I love what Nicky Tillyer said above, though I must disagree that creativity is not learned. I think it is something that can be learned, although perhaps some are more innately creative than others (but without practice, that won’t grow).

I like this topic. I think when we talk about the concept of “Creativity NOT equals art,” the common misunderstanding is the confusion between being creative, and being able to recognize/create/understand esthetics and design. Anyone (who chooses to be, or has the confidence to be) can be creative, but what defines an artist or designer, is one that can take those creative thoughts and bring them to a reality in one medium or another. Furthermore, if a developer is using their creative juices to solve a coding issue, their solution would be creative, however wouldn’t be esthetic (or artistic). I think the main problem is people have a tendency to believe that being a designer or artist is more valuable than just a developer/engineer/etc. I think that everyone, in all environments, has an opportunity to be creative. Lastly, I think that people need to realize that just because a designer/artist can make something look cool, doesn’t make them any more important than the developer that makes it functional.

A must add is the final outcome. What you may consider a creative process, ie “connecting the dots” might not be creative. Whilst you may think you are being creative with cooking, it is the final outcome that is measured Vs the process of being creative. Challenging you own ability may be considered creative to you but not when looked from the point of society. Inventing a wheel is not creative as it’s already been invented and was creative when done so. Education plays a very important part in all of this, understanding the society and have theoretical positioning behind the work you produce. If you are not able to theorise and position work you produce, you are only experimenting within your own capabilities but not necessarily being creative from societies point of view. Of course, there are cultural implications to this argument as well as the idea of “copying” someone else’s work, conforming to trends, etc, but let’s not go into that…

I would put it slightly different:

Being creative is a process that includes experimentation with intent to challenge the norm where final outcome is a derivative of conceptual, procedural and theorised thinking.

Creativity comes in all shapes and sizes: cooking, music, development, design, typography, writing. It’s taking something common and making it amazing. Make something fresh out of something stale. Pushing the barriers of conventional and safe, and taking risks with what you do.

@Filip: “A must add is the final outcome.”
I have to disagree. If I build a car, then you build a car that looks exactly the same but gets better mileage, I would say you were pretty creative in getting it better mileage. We both built cars, but you found a way to make it better.

Let’s say you’ve written a blog application, and I write one that performs faster. I ended with a better result, but we both built a blog.

Maybe I didn’t invent the wheel, but if I bejeweled it, then that would be creative.

I don’t understand what you mean by creativity from societies point of view. Experimenting is the entire premise of creativity. Thinking outside the box, bringing a unique spin on something old, etc. You are correct; it’s all a process. You don’t get to the end and go “OK, now I’m finished I have just begun to be creative.”

@Elliot I’m curious as to what type of “developer” you are.
If you don’t think of stuff like:
“now that I have my data in a multidimensional array, how can i use the least amount of loops so I can save on loading time,” OR
“what’s the best way that I can build this database with the least amount of NULLS in my tables,” OR
“how many lines of code can I save by building this function,” then maybe you aren’t the “developer” that you think you are.

I belive that creativety is an survivel mecanism. We need to be creative to survive and puch forward no matter what we do in life. I don think that creativity is conected to a specific job, title or person. To be crative is to be alive :-D.

I too think anyone can be creative. Some people are better at it than others. In terms of design with websites and graphics I think it is great for both designers and other interested parties to collaborate to come up with the best end product.

I agree that any one can be creative, even if they don’t do art; being creative is innate to anyone who solves problems and comes up with solutions. People who are labeled “creative” perhaps practice this more frequently than others.

Unfortunately, many un-artistic people are not educated as to what “creativity” is – to them it is a term applied only to visual artists and synonymous with “art”, so they deduce that if they don’t do art they aren’t creative. So I think the majority of the population are just merely uninformed.

I work with many clients who don’t understand the value of the creative design process – they don’t want to pay for the effort and time that will lead to a creative sucecessful solution. They think anyone who can “make pretty pictures” can give them some “creativity” in the blink of an eye, which ultimately de-values the design community. Their logic is “why pay somebody more when I have a neice who can use photoshop elements?”

Like somebody already pointed out, it is a skill and talent to be able to funnel apply your creativity into a productive solution for others on a regular basis.

Creativity comes in many forms and is not limited to the the visual part of software or website development.. I’m a junior developer and I really admire the creativity of my seniors because of their ability to design a very nice architecture that will make our system scalable.. Without creativity, creating an architecture with perfectly fitting modules is impossible

What a fun… ’cause to get my job, i was asked about what is creativity for me, in the interview. I’m a publisher, so, we deal with creation the whole time.

So, in the interview i answered that I believe creativity is something that you born to, but, also, it something that can be rose. As you said, everyone can be creative, but there are some people that are more up to.
So, i think we can increase it by increasing our repertory, ’cause to create something, is necessary to know about what has been created.
So, reading, researching, watching good and bad movies, sitcoms, and any kind of art and entertainment.
only depends on you.

I think that creativity boils down to problem solving. There’s a problem, find a way around it. It engages a thought process which may or may not be obvious but it requires a *thought process*. That’s the point to creativity.

Great post. I’ve found that creativity is tapping into that part of you where there are no boundaries and restrictions. You get to do whatever speaks to you without judgments and preconceptions. It’s creating something where there was once nothing or just a glimmer of an idea.

Everyone has creativity inside them. It takes different forms but we all have the ability to make something happen that didn’t exist before. It is only limited by our own minds and actions.

I believe that creativity is within all of us. It is what we do with it that brings about something productive. Creativity is not restricted to the “Arts”. Anyone who solves problems outside the normal solutions is using the creative process. No matter what we have in the world is a direct result to the creative process at work. Think about where we would be without the minds of forward thinkers whether it be with the visual arts to the highest of technology.

As an art teacher I believe teaching techniques and presenting a problem and letting the student figure out how to get to the end solution is encouraging the creative process. When asked how to do something I usually respond with I could tell you but then it is my solution and not yours. But by asking them what they want to accomplish and help them with the technique for the desired end result is help them explore their own creativity.

I think creativity is a mindset and anyone can achieve it. It’s not a “feeling”, it’s a way of seeing, a way of thinking. I think people get caught up in the connection between art/design and creativity because people “create” when they “design”.

I also believe it’s a way of seeing possibilities, a way of thinking that’s far removed from for lack of a better term, “conventional” analytical thinking. People who think creatively don’t follow static rules of logic. Thinking creatively is organic and fluid. A “wrong” answer isn’t seen as a wrong answer, merely a possibility that may lead to something else. And that’s a huge difference between conventional thinking because typically people think in terms of yes and no, or right and wrong. Creative thinking acknowledges all answers as possible clues to better solutions. It allows you see things in new ways, approach problems from different angles. And because thinking creatively is barrier free, you’re more willing to follow riskier ideas as possible solutions that may lead to innovation.

I also believe creativity is all around us, but because not all forms of creativity are within our scope of what we think is creative, we don’t see it. For example, if you invited an electrician into your home to do some work, how would you know that the gentleman’s work was not only exemplary, but creative? All you would know is that it works. Only another electrician would be capable of seeing the level of creativity used in the solution. The same can be said for a mathematician whose “elegance” in equations is beyond your scope of understanding.